The Persian Freud: Freud’s early reception through translation between the 1930s and 1970s in Iran

Abstract

This paper deals with the translation of Freud’s works into Persian in the framework of reception theory. It covers the 1930s and the 1970s, which correspond to the pre-revolutionary period in Iran. The method is historical and draws upon documents, that is, paratexts, written by the translators. The first period, from the 1930s to 1945, was marked by a lack of full translations of Freud’s work, and incoherent accounts of Freudian ideas were published in literary and intellectual magazines. In this initial period of introducing Freud to Iran, there was an unsophisticated understanding of the Freudian discourse; moreover, the discourse was not engaged with other discourses of the time. The second period, from 1945 to the 1970s, saw translations whose prefaces indicate that the discourse was received uncritically by and through translators. Translators took Freud as an intellectual whose ideas could help the Persian intellectuals to fight “superstitions.” However, the translators, who did not have any religious orientations, did not level any criticism against Freudianism at the time.